Empowering Each Other: United for Change

“Enhancing Civic Engagement towards better Social Protection”

Background

The Empowering Each Other (EEO) project is a longstanding partnership between UN Women and the Arab Renaissance for Democracy and Development (ARDD). This partnership commenced in 2014 and still going strong through 2023. EEO aims to reinforce and enhance the civic engagement of women and men to become agents of change capable of increasing women’s potential and opportunities to access justice and lead dignified lives within camps and urban areas in Jordan such as Amman, Mafraq, Zarqa, Tafila, and Karak. Thus, help overcome the barriers and obstacles that hinder women’s effective participation and role in public life.

So far, the EEO project established a committee consisting of 17 women – Jordanian and Syrian refugees – in the Azraq camp and 21 women from Zaatari camp. The committee was able to address and identify critical issues facing women within their communities and raise them within informal and formal channels (UNHCR, Lutheran World Federation, and others). EEO was successful in placing women’s policy recommendations on the main issues that hinder women’s participation in public life such as, job opportunities available to women, facilitating safe transportation, improving healthcare services, and strengthening women’s leadership roles at the forefront of the policy makers agenda.

Building on the progress of EEO’s past interventions, this successive phase of the project is carried out from July 2022 – October 2023 to sustain and enhance the result of the previous phases by a) strengthening civic engagement and leadership of refugees and host community women b) advance women’s social protection to improve their well-being, and c) establish a supportive environment that can endure beyond the project’s interventions.

The project reach covers thirteen (13) Oasis Centres[1] in Amman, Madaba, Ajloun, Zarqa, Karak, Tafileh, Ma’an, Balqa, and Jerash, and the four (4) Oasis Centres in Al-Azraq and Al-Zaatari Camps and works with the Ministry of Social Development in these respective locations.

Our Vision

Women, men, and decision-makers are actively engaged in civic actions to address issues of social protection and gender justice in their communities

The Overall Goal

The goal of this project is to enhance women’s civic engagement in refugee camps and host communities to advance their social protection to improve their well-being and help establish a supportive environment that can endure beyond the project’s interventions.

By adopting positive behaviors among both men and women we are better positioned to meaningfully promote gender sensitization and engagement among them and advance women’s active role within their societies

The Approach We Apply

In this particular intervention, we undertake a responsive and adaptable approach that enables us to address women’s needs which can essentially:

• Advance women’s social protection and improve their well-being
• Ensure that respective government officials become partners in the process and solidify women’s protection within refugee camps and host communities
• Create an enabling environment in which women can practice their agency and men and women join efforts to advocate for women’s needs that are cemented in social protection
• Recognize and build on men’s pivotal role as unequivocal champions that can meaningfully help change gender norm misperceptions within their communities